"The object of education is to prepare the young to educate themselves throughout their lives". Robert Maynard Hutchins

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Friday, April 11, 2008

Thursday at conference

Today was mainly focused on group project presentations.I spent hours trying to get the Marvin part of ours working, and then when it came to present it didn’t run successfully through the av gear they had which was quite disappointing.There was a wide range of material presented but the benefit of the field trip and the group project is that we had worked together as an international group to create a resource we could all use.For each of us it can easily be modified for whatever country and class level we use it with.I can see this as being a really useful form of PD for teachers back home, to come up with a resource within a limited timeframe that meets a specified brief and encourages students to use ICT.

Lunchtime in Hemispheres there was a ‘kiwi’ table – I figured they might be up to something, and as it turned out I was presented with a beautiful bouquet of flowers and a cake – ensuring that everybody in the restaurant knew what day it was!Later in the day the team also gave me a lovely lacquer tray and a card.

Cyclos collected us from the hotel and rode all the way to the museum of History, it was an awesome venue – the courtyard was set with beautiful decorations and hung with lanterns; photos of that don’t do it justice. Nathan Kerr won the NZ individual poster contest - this is great because he is the youngest of our group and has a great future in education ahead of him. He will attend the international conference later this year in Bangkok. Both he and David Olsen were in groups that collected awards for their projects too so very exciting for the kiwi contingent. As well as that, two of the group I had worked won their country's individual awards - Danis from Canada with a web 2.0 presentation for a science lesson, and our colleague from Indonesia - Mamuona.